Understanding
by Iellix
Summary: Post-3.13. In the wake of the events of the finale, Kate remembers an odd request that Allan once made should anything happen to him. In uncovering his past, she finally understands him in a way she never thought she would. One-shot.


While I wasn't really fond of Kate's character (I didn't think she was put together very well, she seemed a bit too stereotypical as the "plucky girl character whose heart is in the right place but doesn't know the workings of warfare", and the actress wasn't that great), I don't think she deserves all of the flak she gets for existing. Like so much else in the third series, there was some great _potential_ there, but it was never realized. There's also a very small matter of a piece of fan-canon that the writers never mentioned that I wanted to do something with. So I felt like writing a fic with Allan and Kate in it. I hope you like it, or, barring that, I hope it doesn't irreparably lower your opinion of me.

Disclaimer: Kate and Allan do not belong to me and are property of the BBC.

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o…o

_She was minding her own business, sorting money into little bags and putting big bundles together for deliveries. It was her least favourite task—all grunt-work that took forever to do, and usually something a member of the gang was sent to do when the others didn't want to hear them talk for a while—but Robin asked her to do it, and he did it with such a gentle low voice that made her feel all soft and gurgly, and so Kate went about doing it just because he asked her to._

_At the very least, she sighed to herself, it left her alone to think. She was used to living in Locksley in that tiny cottage with all of them children sleeping in one bed, but at least they had a cottage to themselves! In the forest they lived and ate and slept practically on top of each other, everybody always in everyone else's business all the time without any privacy at all. Some days she half expected to be thinking something and have someone—someone annoying, probably Allan or Much—pop up and say, "Hey, think louder, I can't hear you!"_

_She didn't like most of the people she lived with now, except for Robin. John, too, but mostly because he reminded her the littlest bit of her father. Tuck scared her with his attitude, Much annoyed her with his fawning, and Allan… Allan was just irritating because he existed and because he antagonized her for giggles._

_She tied the corners of the blanket together around the bread and cheese and money and set the first bundle aside. One down, dozens more to go. She'd be here all afternoon._

_Her finished pile of bundles was growing steadily larger as she worked all through the morning and into the afternoon. Her hands worked on their own so her mind was free to wander. So free to wander that she didn't notice someone had come up behind her._

"_Keeping busy?"_

_She startled and turned around at the same time; her foot caught in her skirts and she tripped and fell and sat hard in the wheel of cheese she was cutting up for the bundles._

_Allan laughed at her._

"_What do you _want?"_ She hissed, hauling herself up to her feet and brushing the bits of smashed cheese from her clothing. She was going to smell for a week because of this and she'd have to put squashed cheese into the bundles. Nobody else had to know she'd sat in it, just so long as he didn't tell anyone._

"_You all right?" He asked._

_Kate frowned. It was unlike Allan to express any kind of empathy, at least towards her._

"_Fine. What do you want?"_

_He was quiet and he didn't make any jokes about her falling in the cheese or tripping on her dress. His hands were clasped behind his back and he was looking away from her, and it occurred to her that he wasn't acting himself._

_She wondered what he was planning, the pig._

"_You don't—you don't like me, do you?" He said finally._

_She huffed, frustrated. "No, _really?_ Goodness, if you hadn't mentioned anything I might not've noticed! Thanks for clearing that up!"_

_He didn't even bat an eye. Now she was worried. Allan was never, ever serious about anything. Maybe he was sick. Or had a worm in his brain. Or something._

"_What?"_

"_I want to ask a favour," he said softly._

_Silence._

"_Why me?" She asked, her eyebrows furrowing. She crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't like you. And you don't like me. Why not ask someone you can trust?"_

_He winced, and almost immediately she regretted saying it. But why? She didn't like him, not one bit, so what did she care that she'd said something that upset him?_

"_You're the only one I _can_ trust," he said. He was being uncharacteristically timid and quiet. "You don't expect me to betray."_

"_You said it was behind you."_

"_It is."_

"_So then what… what do you _want?_ Is this really just some stupid ploy to get me into bed? Because if it is I'll chop your bits off."_

"_You can say no," he said, ignoring her threat of emasculation. "I don't like you any more than you like me. You annoy me and you're a pain and you forget that you're the greenhorn here, that we've all been here and been doing this a long time."_

_She clenched her fists at her side but she said nothing._

"_If something happens to me, promise me you'll do something for me?"_

_She was about to spit at him or shove him into the cheese—it was already squashed, nobody would notice a second butt-indentation—but she stopped herself. Allan was never serious, he was never earnest, and something about the way he was talking to her—talking, not mocking or teasing—made her see him, if only temporarily, differently than she had before. If _Allan_ was being serious, then certainly something was definitely up. For some reason she believed him when he said he trusted her._

"_So why me?"_

"'_Cos you don't like me. I guess that's what we have in common—a certain mutual hatred. But except for us acting like stupid children, I don't think there's any real legitimate malevolence between us."_

"_Posh words for a pickpocket."_

"_You learn to talk well when you want someone to let their guard down."_

_On instinct she reached for her belt-purse but it was still there, securely tied._

"_Relax."_

"_What're you up to?"_

"_Love and hate are pretty basic. There's not much as pure and uncomplicated as love and hate. Because of that, I guess, I feel like I can trust you."_

_He was talking like another person and she wasn't sure what to make of it. He made a compelling and uncharacteristically emotional argument. For the first in a long, long time, she put her own pride and temper aside, and she decided to see what he wanted._

"_Tell me what it is first before I promise."_

"_About a mile from the camp," he began, "not towards the road—up the hill, where we never go because it goes almost straight up—there's a rock-wall."_

"_Uh-huh…"_

"_You have to climb up it but you can get a foothold in the rocks."_

"_You want me to jump off of it or something?"_

"_No. There's a little hole there. There's something important in it. Bring it to Robin and Much and John, they'll know what it is and they'll know what to do with it."_

_It sounded like a weird request, coming from him. He was being unspecific and enigmatic and carefully giving her approximately zero details._

"_If this is a trick I'll have you killed," she growled at him._

"_It's not a trick. And if you have to go and find this thing, it won't do you any good to threaten me with death because I'll probably be dead then anyway."_

That_ got her. Allan, dead? For some reason it gave her a little pang in her chest—the thought of not arguing with him anymore, of not having anyone to fight with or flirt meaninglessly with or pick on anymore made her feel suddenly… upset._

_He was already walking away, leaving her to her work again, and she darted after him and grabbed his shoulder._

"_What's this all about? What's wrong? Is everything all right?"_

_He wore a lopsided grin. "Don't worry about it. Just in case, you know?"_

_She frowned._

"_Are you sure?"_

"_Mmhm." He was walking away again._

"_I never told you I'd do it."_

_He shrugged. "I can't _make_ you do anything. You know where to look if something happens. If you don't want to do it, you can tell Much to do it. He'll do anything you ask."_

_She frowned, but at least he was acting a little more like himself again._

"_Oh, hey, Kate?"_

"_Yeah?"_

"_You smell like cheddar."_

_She shoved him over._

o…o

She'd almost forgotten about that day. It was months ago, and after getting caught up in the chaos and the turmoil and the grief and mourning after the fight at the castle, other things were more pressing than a _weird_ request by a man she never really actually liked.

Except she _had_ liked him. Sort of. In her own way. They weren't friends, but neither were they enemies. He didn't moon after her like Much did and she didn't feel even remotely the same towards him as she did towards sweet Robin. And after he'd made that request of her, so earnest and sincere, she began to notice that their arguing and fighting was less about _fighting_ and more of an affectionate animosity.

While she was still stunned and devastated by the death of Robin Hood, a small part of her also mourned for Allan a-Dale, who would never again flirt with her or make silly faces at her when she was trying to be serious. They would never call each other names. He'd never tell her she'd just sat in a pig kidney again and she'd never get the chance to push him in the mud again.

Yes, she'd miss him. Behind all of the jokes and the silliness, the teasing, and his carefully constructed cavalier attitude, he was a good man—and a brave man—and he was determined to help them even though they all thought he'd betrayed them.

He was hiding something, too. Something he never talked about and something that nobody else ever mentioned, but something that affected him so very deeply. Something that followed him, dogged him, wherever he went, something she noticed only now, in retrospect. She never got the chance to ask what it was, because by the time she figured out that she cared enough about him to ask in the first place he was already dead. Now she would never know, she figured.

In an effort to get her mind off of her own black depression, she went for a walk in the forest—just to be alone with her thoughts and her memories and her grief. She was a mile out before she remembered what he'd told her.

A mile from the camp, up the hill—a rock wall…

She broke into a trot, and then a run, faster and faster up the hill. Her legs were tired but she kept up until she reached the top. The ground sloped a little bit and there was the wall, a great slanted boulder some twenty feet high. She stood at the bottom, looking up at it. From here she couldn't see the hole he was talking about, where apparently he'd stored something important.

"Probably some stolen gold or something," she grumbled. Then she looked for something to climb on—a foothold or _something._ "If Allan can do this, then I certainly can," she told herself.

There were protruding stones and bits of branches jammed into cracks in the rock that she realized were put there by Allan so he could climb.

She pulled herself up.

And up.

And up.

Aside from looking for 'a little hole', she had no idea what she should be keeping an eye out for—until she reached for what she thought was a ledge and her hand came in contact with something that felt like a basket. She heaved herself up just a little further so she could look into the hole, thinking it would be a basket full of stolen goods of some kind—

—and was shocked to find nothing more than an ordinary-looking little pigeon in a long square cage. It cooed softly and cocked its little head to the side, staring at her with those beady-blank eyes.

Further inspection of the little nook turned up absolutely nothing, save for two little clay dishes. One was empty and probably once had seed in it; the other was full of water.

A pigeon.

He sent her up here to look for a _pigeon._

If this was Allan's idea of playing one last joke on her, then he must have been rolling all over the Heavenly Kingdom in fits of laughter at her expense right now. She had a right mind to just let the bird go and be done with it.

She reached for the latch on the basket, but she stopped herself. She remembered the way he'd been so serious, the way he'd looked so pleading and come to her—someone he didn't like and he knew didn't like him—with this strange-sounding request to look for something apparently important tucked away in a little hole in a rock wall. John or Much would know, he'd said—Robin would've known, too, but he was gone now.

You should honour the dead, she thought to herself. Just one last time.

So she picked the cage up by a conveniently-placed strap and slung it over her shoulder and began the precarious descent from the wall. Her skirt snagged on the way down and tore. She cursed and sputtered and wrenched it free. She snagged her clothes and hair twice more before landing gracelessly in the dead leaf litter on the forest floor. By the time she wandered back into camp, she looked like she'd been in a fight.

Much looked up at her absently as she walked in; John only slightly lifted his eyes in acknowledgement and Tuck did nothing at all. Archer was nowhere to be found, and frankly she was glad of it. She didn't want to have to face him, not now. She was still too angry and too sad and still quietly blamed him for what happened.

"Where've you been?" Much asked in his distinctly mothering tone. "We were worried."

"Went for a walk," Kate answered. "I wanted to clear my head."

"Did it work?"

She shook her head no.

"What've you got there?" He asked, noticing the strap slung over her shoulder. "Find something—"

And then he stopped dead in the middle of his sentence and instant recognition came over his face.

"John…" he rasped.

And John had noticed the pigeon cage, too, and was looking at it with the same stunned expression that Much was.

"Where did you _get that?"_ He squawked. His voice always went into that squeaky-high register whenever he was shocked.

"That's what… what I wanted to talk about," she stuttered, feeling suddenly very unsure of herself. "It was Allan's, he told me a long time ago that if something happened he wanted me to find something he had hidden and I just went there and—"

"Hush, girl," John said gently, placing a heavy arm around her shoulders and pulling her into a half-hug. "Come with us. I think we have something to explain."

"I think we do…" Much agreed.

Why this was something Tuck shouldn't be privy to she had no idea. Maybe it was private or personal, or maybe it was something from long before his time in the group—he wasn't much more senior than she was, after all.

They walked a long ways up the path, far from the campsite, where they sat her down and Much offered her a flask of something that obviously wasn't water.

"I think you need it."

She took the flask but didn't drink. She had no idea what was going on and now she wanted answers.

"We called her 'Djaq'," John told her after there was a long and uncomfortable silence between the three of them. "She told us her birth-name once and I can't remember what it was and I don't think Much remembers, either. Robin would have remembered, but he's not here to tell us now."

"A woman?" Kate asked. That suddenly explained a _lot _about Allan.

"It wasn't just a woman," Much said. "And Djaq, well… she was something special."

"Who was she?"

"Saracen woman. She came here disguised as a man, as a slave. She had no reason to stay with us but she stayed anyway," he explained. "She stayed with us and she helped us through so much. I don't mean to speak disrespectfully of the dead, but Robin had nothing on her. Djaq was the smartest person I have ever met—the smartest person I ever _will_ meet, I bet."

"What happened to her?" She asked, feeling her stomach sink. Was she dead? Did she leave Allan, hurt him somehow? What? She had to know. She had to fit the last pieces of the puzzle together. She had to know what made Allan a-Dale tick.

"It was… I think it was complicated," he went on. "Allan never told us what happened and it never really occurred to us to ask Djaq about it until it was miles too late."

"'Too late'?" She asked. "Did she…?"

"She isn't dead, lass," John said gently. "It's worse than that."

"Worse than death?"

Much nodded solemnly, looking pointedly at her. "When death ends love, it's easier than knowing that they're still around, but don't want you."

Her heart did a funny flip and she felt her ears go red. Much still cared for her—still loved her. He was making her feel guilty, though whether or not that was his intent she didn't know. Instead of talking, she looked up from her seat and waited for one of them to go on. She didn't see how any of this had to do with a pigeon, but she so wanted to know this part of Allan's past—even though it wasn't going to be half the story—that she was willing to sit and listen for as long as it took.

"_His_ name was Will."

"Will Scarlett?" She asked. Their eyes nearly bugged out. "Allan talked about him sometimes. A friend of his?"

For a friend to steal a sweetheart… she frowned slightly.

"If 'friend' is the right word," John said.

"Oh?"

"We never asked, you see," Much said, his face going pink suddenly as clearly something embarrassed him to even _think_ about. "It wasn't our business and, well, even though it was obvious, at the same time nobody knew what was _really_ going on with the three of them. We all had our guesses, but in the end—who's to say if they did or if they didn't? They were so close, it was like they lived in their own little world just the three of them."

Much was dancing around the words in a way that only he could. She wasn't sure if she even knew what he was trying to say.

"I think he means they all loved each other," John offered. Much nodded. "I don't know what _kind_ of love it was. Nobody does. I don't think Robin did, either. It was theirs, you see. Theirs alone, and only they understood it. Only the three of them _had to_ understand it."

"That was before Allan left. And then after, well… we hated him, then. We hated him a long time after that. I hated him right up until… until…" Much choked and sobbed briefly, wiping his face on his dirty sleeve and snurffling like a pig in mud. "I don't think they hated him, really, Djaq and Will. They couldn't hate anyone. I just think they wanted answers and they didn't get them. And then it was just the two of them, and they fell in love without him. When he came back, I guess he realized there wasn't room in it anymore for him. I can look back and see it now, but back then I didn't know what it meant. He loved them both but they chose each other over him."

He was crying now and his voice was cracking, so John took over.

"They stayed in the Holy Land together. They got married. But I think—I don't know—I think they still loved him, in their own way."

The older man reached over and took the pigeon cage out of her lap. "She gave him this. It's a carrier pigeon. I think… I think they wanted him to send them word when our work here was done. Allan has no family in England, you see, and at the time he had no friends, either. You can't live a life like he does and expect people to still like you. I think they wanted him to stay with them."

Pause.

"At least, I think. I don't know. I don't think we ever will know."

So that was it, then. The untold story of Allan a-Dale. Nobody talked about it because nobody understood it, except Allan, who didn't want to talk about it because he didn't know what to make of it himself. Heartbroken. She knew what that felt like—when the person she wanted most in the world didn't want her. In Allan's case it was two people. He loved them and they loved him in a way that only the three of them understood and he lost them. He was a world away from them, the only connection between them being a little pigeon in a cage.

And she understood him, for the first time. It all fell into place.

"What do we do now?"

"We have Tuck write a note," Much said. "And let it go."

"The bird will take it back to the Holy Land," John said.

"They have to know what happened."

Kate nodded slowly. She held the basket up to Much. "You should do it. You knew them. It wouldn't feel right if they were my words."

Much nodded and took the cage.

They began to walk back, but Kate stayed put.

"Will you be all right alone?" John asked.

Nod.

Much took the dagger off his belt and tossed it at her feet.

"Keep a weapon handy," he said sternly. "We're not the only outlaws in this forest, you know."

She felt her throat close up in a huge knot. Robin used to tell her that—never to go out walking in the forest without a weapon. He told them all that, but especially her. Bits of Robin had been absorbed into all of them—protectiveness, selflessness, bravery—and each of them, it seemed, would take in a little bit of him. Much was going to become the protector. She didn't know what she'd absorb yet. She didn't want to think about it.

They left her alone.

What would have happened, she wondered, if Allan hadn't died? Would he have ever told her about Will and Djaq and the three-person love they shared? Would _anyone?_ Would she have ever understood him, or would he remain, forever in her mind the way he'd always been? She _understood_ him now, and so well, but he was gone and he'd never know.

Or would he have left? Eventually Robin's work would have been done and they would all likely have parted company forever—they had no reason to stay together as a group other than their cause in the forest. One day Allan would have let the pigeon go and gotten on a ship and left forever, never to be seen or heard of again in England. Would she have missed him then, she wondered?

She didn't know. It was all 'whatif'. Allan was dead. They cared for their friend and comrade, and mourned his death, but the two people who loved him still didn't know yet. There was nobody to cry for him.

She reached up to brush her hair from her face and found her cheeks wet with tears.

It was all so much to deal with.

She'd cried for Robin already—for hours and hours until she had no more tears, and then she'd slept and dreamed of crying for him. Now she crumpled forward and buried her face in her tattered, dirty skirts and cried again.

Because somebody _had_ to cry for Allan a-Dale.

o…o

0…0…0…0…0

I started writing this back in July when the third series ended, but I hadn't gotten around to finishing it until now. I have to say, this story nearly makes me want to cry. Fan-canon dictates that Allan brought a pigeon back with him from the Holy Land—I always rather liked that idea, so I made that more or less the focus of this story. I'm still not sure why I wanted to have Allan trust this information with Kate. Allan always had funny motives for things, anyway, didn't he?

I hope you enjoyed my story. The tissues are on me, by the way.


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